Ethanol can cause corrosion of metal parts, including carburetors, degradation of plastic and rubber components, harder starting, and reduced engine life.
Ethanol is known to damage small gasoline-powered engines, such as those in lawnmowers and leaf blowers. Consumer Reports explains:
A Department of Energy study found that E15 caused hotter operating temperatures, erratic running, and engine-part failure. But even gas with the usual 10 percent ethanol (E10) could help destroy small engines.
‘Ethanol has inherent properties that can cause corrosion of metal parts, including carburetors, degradation of plastic and rubber components, harder starting, and reduced engine life,’ says Marv Klowak, global vice president of research and development for Briggs & Stratton, the largest manufacturer of small engines. ‘The higher the ethanol content, the more acute the effects.’
Servicing dealers are reporting similar problems, even with E10, according to the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute, the industry’s trade group.”
I have some firsthand experience with this. A few years ago, I lived in Hawaii. In my location, it was difficult to get ethanol-free gasoline.
I bought a brand-new lawnmower when I moved to Hawaii, and within six months it stopped working. I opened up the carburetor and found that the float was stuck in place with what looked like varnish.
I assumed it was probably residue from components that had been dissolved by ethanol. About a year later, I was mowing, and I heard a loud explosion and a thud against my house. The lawnmower sputtered and died.
At first, I didn’t know what had happened, but a closer examination showed that a hole larger than a quarter had been blown out of the lawnmower’s engine. This was a catastrophic failure of the metal in the engine block.
I suspected that ethanol was the culprit, although I couldn’t prove it. But it did make me think about the possible implications. The ethanol industry is profitable because there is a mandate requiring the use of ethanol in the fuel supply.
Although there is a natural market for ethanol as an octane enhancer for gasoline, it would certainly be lower than the levels that are presently mandated.
This means that wealth is being transferred from across the U.S. into ethanol-producing states. But who is responsible for the consequences when ethanol damages small engines? I can tell you that in my case, I had to buy a new lawnmower.
I expect that is the situation in many cases where ethanol damages an engine. The ethanol industry profits, but they don’t bear all the costs. This isn’t a hypothetical. Ethanol is known to damage small engines, as well as some older automobile engines.
So, now that the Trump Administration has announced plans to allow higher ethanol blends to be sold year-round, it is inevitable that more repair costs are going to get pushed onto consumers.
This is just another way of subsidizing the ethanol industry.
This week the oil industry threatened to sue the US government over the change, arguing that Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), under the Clean Air Act, does not have the authority to make this change.
Rather, they argue, it requires an act of Congress. The American Petroleum Institute (API) also released a poll last week showing that the majority of voters are concerned about the proposed change, due to the potential impact on vehicles.
The ethanol industry will claim this is about choice. But that’s not true. The ethanol industry doesn’t want consumers to have an unhindered option to choose ethanol-free gasoline.
If they did, we wouldn’t have an ethanol mandate. So we end up with a fuel that is forced by government mandate into the fuel supply, and the negative costs get passed on to consumers.
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A Bigger Problem with Ethanol in gasoline
With ethanol in the gas, vehicle owners who park in a heated garage in winter have another concern. The problem is a condensation caused by a warm tank going from the heated garage out to colder temperatures. It was bad enough that non-ethanol gas could turn to crud, gumming up the works. In the days before E10, a fuel filter would take out water that might invade your tank and you’d be good to go — as long as you stabilize the fuel for long storage periods. Now, however, ethanol is the oxygenator of choice in fuel and it loves to mix with water. Get more than 500 parts per million water in the fuel, and it bonds with all the ethanol and then plops to the bottom of the tank in a powerless blob. That’s phase separation, and it takes the octane with it. If this crud even burns through the engine, it abrades injectors, nullifies the work of lubricants and causes catastrophic damage. It happens suddenly and just as suddenly your engine dies because the large amount of water+ethanol suddenly at the bottom of the tank and being fed to the carburetor. 43 gallons of E-10, (87-Octane), would have resulted in 129 ounces, (one gallon), of water+ethanol glob at the bottom of the fuel tank with the rest of the now unavailable 77-octane gas just above it.
A problem many of us in general aviation are having is with homebuilt airplanes. (Due mainly to the much lower cost; the number of new homebuilt aircraft surpassed the number of new commercial general aviation airplanes in 2017.) I want to put an auto engine that uses unleaded fuel, (a saving of 35% as compared to aviation fuel), but it would have to be free of ethanol. This is because of the danger of phase separation in flight, causing an immediate engine failure and the subsequent off airport contact with the ground or body of water. This possibility is made worse because a plane will repeatedly go from warm tanks at ground level to very cold tanks at cruising altitude causing multiple instances of condensation. We would much rather use ethanol free auto fuel instead of leaded fuel (100LL) but the problem is that it is very hard to find ethanol free auto fuel in the US.
This 100LL is much worse for the environment. While unleaded aviation fuels are starting to come to market, they are not common and the price is higher than 100LL making it 50% higher than auto fuel.
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